Henry Harmon Spalding and "The Settlers"

I am at the national board meeting of the Oregon California Trails Association and am listening to National Park Service employee Otis Halfmoon talk about plans for cooperative programs with the federally recognized tribes who live along the route of the trails. As he told the board, Presbyterian Missionaries Henry Harmon Spalding and Marcus Whitman traveled the Oregon Trail route in the 1830s, and affected his tribe--the Nez Perces--and those impacts are still being experienced today. There are many stories to tell about the trails, and the tribal stories are just some of them.

As one board member noted, the organization needs to recognize there are differing viewpoints to the trails stories...

Otis is funny, he told the board there are many tribes, and even one tribe called "The Settlers."

--Candy Moulton